Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 128585 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 643(@200wpm)___ 514(@250wpm)___ 429(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128585 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 643(@200wpm)___ 514(@250wpm)___ 429(@300wpm)
I faced my soldiers, all dressed in black, each decked out with a fuck-ton of guns, ammo and knives. Lawson had teams of men guarding the abandoned buildings. I wasn’t taking any chances. We were to fucking drive into the yard and rain bullets on all the cunts. No theatrics. No fannying about. Just a straight-up fucking shoot-out.
Then I’d find Lawson and Freddie. Find Cheska and Gene.
“You know your orders,” I said to my men. “Leave Lawson and Freddie to us,” I said, nudging my head toward to my family. “Once all their men are down, secure the perimeter and don’t let anyone in their organisation live. You shoot to fucking kill. None of them breathe a single breath when we’re done with them.” My soldiers nodded, hard as fuck for the lives they were about to take.
Charlie’s phone beeped over and over, and he nodded at me. “Everyone is ready. Royal, Seamus, Vano, the Italians … all of them. Locked and loaded and ready to fucking roll.”
“Fall out,” I ordered my men, and everyone loaded into the back of the vans. Mikey and Jim, my generals, took up the lead of their units. I climbed into the last van, my family all climbing in beside me. I sat on the bench seat and sparked up another cig. I checked my guns were loaded and all my knives were accounted for. Then I leaned my head back on the wall of the van and felt it pull off the drive.
My family were silent as we made our way to Deptford. The nicotine calmed me, and I fought back the anger that was pushing and pushing to break free.
Not yet. Not fucking yet.
But soon. Soon I would unleash the fucking demons inside me. I’d lay them all at Freddie and Lawson’s feet.
“I’ll be okay, baby. I promise,” Vinnie was saying to his imaginary Pearl. His pupils were blown and he was strapped with guns. He kissed her on the cheek, then put his arm around her. “I won’t let anyone hurt us.” Vinnie glanced over at me, then back at Pearl. “I’ll look after him, I swear.”
I took a deep breath, knowing he was talking about me. Eric met my eyes and nodded. He was ready. More than fucking ready to get his brother back. A pair of green-brown eyes entered my head, and I kept them there, suspended in the air. Right in my line of sight. I kept them there as a talisman. As a fucking guide toward my bird locked inside that fucking abandoned garage.
I glanced down at my phone—one of my replacements for the one those Lawson fuckers had smashed. I pulled up the app and saw that Cheska hadn’t moved for thirty minutes. From the blueprints we’d managed to get of the garage, she was being kept in some back office.
I didn’t even entertain the idea that she had been harmed. I needed to keep the lid on my rage until we were there. Thinking of her in any state but fucking perfect made the rage bleed out and seep into my bones, my flesh, ripping through my enforced calm.
“Eyes fucking forward,” I said to my family, who were all looking up at me. “Just like we did with the Russians. We go in there and offer no fucking mercy.” They all either nodded their heads, gripped their guns or flicked their knives. “Once the Lawson soldiers have been put the fuck down, we hunt for Ollie and Freddie.” My leather-gloved hand tightened around the butt of my gun. “Then take my lead. We’ll see what those cunts do first.” I pointed at my gun. “We’ll take it from there.”
The rest of the ride was made in silence. We stopped, and the driver banged his fist on the partition between us and him. Charlie waited for my signal. I checked the tracker again; Chelsea Girl still hadn’t moved.
“Light them the fuck up,” I said to Charlie, and he sent the cue for the other syndicates scattered around the city to move in and destroy these pricks once and for all.
I threw a new cig into my mouth, balancing it between my lips, then nodded to Eric to kick open the van doors. He did, my soldiers lining up into one long fucking wall of death. Lawson’s cunts, surprised by our arrival, came crawling from the abandoned buildings, shots firing.
I cocked my gun, then brought the fucking rain.
Taking my first round of shots as their cue, Adley soldiers opened fire on the mass of Lawson men trying to take us down. I walked forward, my family and soldiers never breaking our line.
We pushed on, one fucking lethal unit. Lawson men started dropping, their scattered defence crumbling under the surprise attack. I sucked on my cig as I ploughed bullet after bullet into the fuckers that had come for my family, Cheska’s family, my fucking blood.